Beyond Dress Sizes: An African Woman’s Journey to Body Freedom.

Coming Home to My Body—how I broke up with diet culture and learned to love my Afrocentric self.

I was in college when I overheard two boys talking about me.

“She’s alright,” one said, “but she has bad skin.”

How rude! I didn’t even have acne in my early teens, but I struggled in my late teens—and that single comment haunted me for years. I tried every remedy I could find, desperate to “fix” something that would eventually clear with age.

Growing Up in Two Worlds

I spent my early childhood in Ghana, where beauty standards were very different from what I met as a teenager in London. In Ghana, body hair on a woman wasn’t shocking. In England, it felt taboo. But the real shock was skinny culture.

Everywhere I looked—magazines, TV, music videos—thinness reigned. Zero dress size was a goal. As a young African woman just stepping into adulthood, my sense of beauty was hijacked. I dieted, bought products, and twisted myself to fit an ideal that was never meant for me.

Diet Culture and the Money Machine

Someone once said one of the surest ways to make money is to capitalise on women’s insecurities. They weren’t wrong.

From SlimFast to Atkins, I spent money chasing a dress size. My mum, a psychiatric nurse, worried about my relationship with food and often tried to help me see things differently.

Then an autoimmune disease changed everything. Suddenly, weight meant nothing. My body wouldn’t obey any diet plan. I stopped counting calories and started asking: What nourishes me?

That was the beginning of my healing—health over aesthetics.

Learning to Like My African Face

For years I held myself to Eurocentric ideals I could never meet. I think of Zambian lawyer Naomi Pilula, who recently shared a selfie and was met with cruel comments about her looks. Instead of hiding, she embraced herself. Her courage reminded me of my grandmother’s teaching: be kind, especially about appearance.

Naomi’s story is the story of so many African, Black and non-European women. Like me, they’ve been shamed for features they never chose—full lips, wide noses, rich skin tones—and told to shrink or bleach or straighten to be “acceptable.”

Beyond Dress Sizes

A mug I saw recently said, “Nothing tastes better than feeling skinny.” I stared at it in disbelief. After everything we know about mental and physical health, is this really where we still are?

Years ago that message would have crushed me. Today, after years of therapy and inner work, it doesn’t land.

The real turning point came after remission from Graves’ disease: I didn’t care about “acceptable” body image anymore. I cared about being well.

Even when someone tried to body-shame me recently, it didn’t touch me. That’s growth.

Coming Home to Myself

As an African woman I’ve questioned my looks every step of the way—too big, too small, too light, too dark. At some point I realised no one was ever going to hand me approval. I had to give it to myself.

Now I buy clothes for me and move through the world in my Black skin and Afrocentric features—no explanations, no excuses.

This blog exists to hold space for women like me—and every time I write, I meet sisters from all cultures who share this struggle.

Here, we share our experiences as a catalyst for change.

This is an open invitation to begin coming home to yourself. Download my free ebook , and when you’re ready, come and tell me your story. I’d truly love to hear from you—there’s a warm welcome waiting on the Contact Us page.

Reflection Questions

• If you could spend an afternoon with your younger self, what would you share about beauty, worth, and growing into yourself?

• How have outside expectations about size, skin, or features shaped the way you see yourself—and how are you unlearning them today?

Remember

• Dress sizes are only labels. They shift from brand to brand and say nothing about your health or worth.

• Bodies change—again and again. Growth, hormones, seasons of life: change is natural, not failure.

• Health is whole. True well-being includes your mind, emotions, and spirit—not just the number on a scale.

• Change for you, not for shame. Any shift in food, movement, or style should be self-chosen and rooted in care.

This space is more than a blog—it’s a gathering place where we change through shared experiences.
May the stories shared here keep reminding you that you are not alone, and that coming home to yourself is both possible and worth it.